Ralf Lauren, an American value?

A few nights ago, we watched “Very Ralph” a self-serving documentary lauding the story of Ralph Lauren, born Ralph Lifshitz, was a son of Jewish emigrants without any formal education in the fashion industry.

What he had, and still seems to possess, is an incredible good eye for good and one-of-a-kind design. This is all well and good, and while the movie is a tribute to lifestyle-creation and to personal vanity it’s a fascinating lesson in American ethnology.

This narcissistic view, in many ways, has been and is now more than ever before, a prelude to the downfall of first-world countries in the era of coronavirus.

Good looks, superficiality and glamorous lifestyle are a dangerous, thin veneer upon which our entire Western society has been skating its heart out, without noticing the growing cracks all over its surface...